Switzerland: Grindelwald --> Lauterbrunnen --> Luzern

Have you ever been somewhere that instantly made you want to cry? I'm talking downright take-your-breath-away beautiful. Well, that's the feeling I had when our train stopped in Grindelwald, Switzerland. Maybe it was the lack of sleep from the night before, but I got chocked up and had to stand on the platform for a minute to compose myself before Jon and I walked into town. It was the ultimate picture I had in my mind when it came to Switzerland: brilliant green hills, cute wooden chalets with flowers in window boxes straddled by cute shutters, colorful trains, and dramatic mountains capped with snow.

The entire train ride was beautiful, and took an even better turn upon rounding the lake towards Interlaken. We hit the Alps in full force, riding along a slate-colored stream.

Once arriving in Grindelwald, Jon and I spent Friday hiking around the hills of the town, first stopping by the tourist office for information (thank GOODNESS we did that) before grabbing a bus. The first of many happy mistakes last weekend, we couldn't understand the bus driver over the intercom and ended up missing our stop at the Oberer Glacier and taking the bus up to Grosse Scheidegg. Oops. BUT the view from that stop was INCREDIBLE. Jon and I had a wonderful picnic lunch at the top of the mountain, complete with sausage, cheese, crackers, and wine that we brought with us from Germany. Oh, and American fruit snacks. Clutch. It was one of the best picnics I've had in my life. The scenery was incredible.



Rather than hike the full 6 km back down to town, Jon and I decided to try and see that glacier we had missed before. Well, Jon and I again couldn't understand the bus driver (same guy, coincidentally) and got off a few stops early so we didn't miss it. Thus, we ended up with a 6+ km hike that day through farmland and houses. I loved hearing the bells attached to the cows' necks and turning a corner to see their beautiful patched hides. Those are definitely some of the happiest (and gorgeous) cows I've ever seen. Who wouldn't be a happy cow in a place like that? Especially when you are being used for milk and not meat.

After trekking back to our hostel (Naturfreundehaus - I highly recommend it), we ate pizza for dinner at Onkel Tom's where we sat next to a table of 3 couples from Colorado. And interestingly, they had the same opinion about that Alps vs. the Rockies that I shared with Jon earlier in the day. One woman said, "If you ask me later, I'll deny it, but... I think that these mountains are more beautiful than the Rockies." Others at the table chimed in and said, "Well, they are definitely more dramatic." And that's what I felt: combined with the green hillside and sudden uplift, the whole scene is just dramatic. Different than the Rockies. Beautiful in an entirely different way. Jon and I introduced ourselves after hearing a few other mentions of Colorado. This ALWAYS happens to me: I met yet another couple whose kid went to my high school. But I didn't know their son.

After dinner, Jon and I hiked back up the hill to our hostel and PASSED OUT around 9:30.

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This picture shows where we were on Friday (Grosse Scheidegg in green to Grindelwald in red on the left) and the trail we hiked Saturday (Grindelwald through Kleine Scheidegg to Lauterbrunnen, in red).

On Saturday, we were up early for breakfast at the hostel. The spread of granola and oats, yogurt and fruit was cute and delightful. And delicious. I helped myself to 1 1/2 bowls of granola with apricot yogurt, a 1/2 bowl of homemade applesauce, and an array of meat and cheese along with some bread and raspberry jam. It was a great meal to prepare us for the long 20km hike to Lauterbrunnen.

After strapping on our hiking boots, we grabbed our packs and headed down to town to find signs for the Kleine Scheidegg trail. It was uphill all the way up to the top (Kleine Scheidegg) and upon reaching the top, we found thousands of people. While at the tourist office the day before, we had been told to expect a crowd due to the Jungfrau Marathon. And it indeed was crazy up there. Can you imagine running a marathon UPHILL with an elevation gain of about 3000ft? Well, that's what those people did. Julia, Anthony, and James, take note. I think you should run that. :)

Jon and I grabbed some Swiss-brewed beers and a pecan-pie thing along with some rolls to go with the cheese we purchased from a local cheese stand on the way up. The view from the restaurant was great; we could see where we came from in the morning along with all 3 of the famous peaks Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. After eating, we trekked up to another path to avoid fighting our way through the runners and spectators. We ran into an ex-Pat from Pittsburgh who had just finished. I don't know how he was walking but we took his picture and he took ours. Jon and I then continued on, hiking on a "cow-path" along the hillside.



We stopped about an hour from Wengen and ate the cheese and bread we purchased. The cheese here has thus far been some of the best I've ever had. Gah, how I wish I could bring back mounds and mounds of food. Hiking down to Wengen, the scenery was a bit different as we walked through a forest. I hit a wall when we reached Wengen and my feet did not want to move. It was a struggle to hike the last hour to Lauterbrunnen. Going downhill is definitely not as fun as it sounds. When we reached Lauterbrunnen around 7PM, we checked into our 400-year-old hostel (after a scare that they didn't get our reservation) and had a traditional Swiss dinner of Rosti. It's basically hashbrowns with cheese and whatever else (I had ham and mushrooms). But it tasted so good after the hike.

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Sunday morning, we were up early to check out by 9AM. Jon and I stayed a bit longer on the porch and ate croissants and bananas while watching a group dressed in traditional clothing. The church bells rang in a prolonged song for 15 minutes, possibly to signal to the town that service was to start at 9:30. Upon silence of the bells, we headed up to Staubbach Falls to hike behind the waterfall and look over the town. The water lit up brilliantly in the sun against the grey and beige rock wall.


Slowly making our way through town, grabbing two (SMALL but tasty) lattes for 4.40 CHF each (you don't get a whole lot for your money here - btw, it's a about a 1 to 1 conversion from dollars), Jon spontaneously decided to go into a ticket office and we found ourselves riding a gondola to the top of a hill overlooking Lauterbrunnen over to Wengen, with a sight of the 3 peaks. We met a nice Canadian couple who had hiked a similar amount and looked like they too were ready for a day off. Returning to the train station, Jon spent the last of his Swiss Franks (exactly enough) for 2 tickets back to Interlaken. We walked around town until it was time to board, grabbing a few last shots of the picturesque town.

When we arrived in Interlaken, we randomly decided to head to Luzern (Lucerne) to travel as much with our Eurail pass as possible. We hopped on the train and started going uphill when all of the sudden the train stopped. That's never a good sign when you're going up a hill and you stop. We were told that there was a technical problem and that the train was going to try to go back down the hill. It started to move and then came to a grinding halt. That's never a good sign either. The attendant told everyone that we'd be taking a bus to Luzern instead and would be moving back to the station. Jon and I debated trying to go to Bern instead, but decided that we wanted to try the bus. After sitting in the bus and grabbing another local train to Luzern a few stops later, we arrived only 1.5 hours late.

Immediately, Jon and I hit the street while there was still daylight, walking through the covered bridge, heading up to the city wall, and admiring the Lowendenkmal (lion statue commemorating the loss of Swiss soldiers). We ate dinner along the Reuss River at the Rathaus Brewery. I had a Bretzel (pretzel) with ham and some saffron soup. Jon had spare ribs. We shared two types of beer and watched as it began to pour.



Covering our backpacks with the built-in raincover (yeah, REI Backpacks) and strapping on our matching REI Taku jackets, we made it to the station with time to spare for our train to Basel. Many Swiss army men were aboard our train and I admired their charcoal gray suits. When we finally reached Basel, we couldn't spot a train back to Freiburg but then after asking around a few times, found a train an hour later. We reached Freiburg around 12:30AM and took the last local train out of the city. It was a whirlwind weekend that showed us both sides of Switzerland. I see why young people don't visit Switzerland that often (it's expensive), but it was definitely worth the money for the weekend trip.

The weekend was amazing overall. We couldn't have asked for better weather (clear for both days of hiking) and our mistakes all turned out to be great in the end. The views of the Alps were worth the trouble alone and I have a feeling that Jon and I will return.

In Germany!

It sure did take a long time to finally reach Freiburg! After visiting Princeton for the weekend (yay!!), I hopped on the train up to Newark, flew to DC (with only 4 other people), flew to Frankfurt (this is where I should have stopped traveling), and then waiting 8 hours before flying to Basel. Now, had I actually looked at my itinerary and realized that I'd be sitting in the Frankfurt airport that long and that a train to Freiburg from Frankfurt is only 2 hours, I probably would have changed my route. But, no, I didn't look and thus didn't get to this doorstep until 28+ hours after leaving Princeton. Oh, well.

There are so many things I could touch upon in terms of thoughts about Freiburg. But I'll let the pictures do some of the talking because this town is just so darn cute! I will add that I absolutely LOVE German food and I'd definitely want to live here for a prolonged period of time. Beautiful.


Cute little area of the main town center.


Plaza by the Freiburg Munster

Getting ready for another adventure

I have some updating to do to fill in stories and pictures from the South America portion of my adventures. I also must write about Costa Rica!

Next up is Germany, France, and Switzerland! I'm getting in as much travel as possible this year, I suppose. :)

I am searching for my leather-bound journal to take with me to jot down ideas and observations while hiking in the Alps, sipping beer at Oktoberfest, and riding a train through the Black Forest.

More to come!

Lauca National Park

A group of seven of us just returned from Lauca National Park where we
saw 18000ft volcanoes and sooooo many camelids!!! I was in alpaca
heaven. There were vincunas and llamas and alpacas, oh my! I will mist
definitely be posting pictures soon. The trip up was fantastic full of
the Inca Trail, a stop at an ashram, and 7000 year old mummies! On
the return trip we stopped at some hot springs pools and bathed in mud
an hot water. It felt so amazing.

More to come! It's Emily and my last night in Arica before we head
north to Peru in the morning. Arica has been great an it's a very
safe city. Though apparently there was a 4.0 mag earthquake here this
morning! They are following us north as the fault line is unzipping.
Ha. Just kidding, Mom. ;) We were not here to feel it. No worries.

Onto Peru!

Exhausted.

Last night was pretty crazy with everyone going out for dinner and drinks. Everyone is pretty tired this morning as a result and some are feeling sick, in addition. I’m just exhausted and excited for a nap when we are allowed to leave the boat and go to the hotel.

I’ve decided to leave from Peru on March 10th or 11th. I won’t be staying for the portion of the trip in Arequipa and Cusco. Oh, well. At this point, I’m excited to get home.

Tonight and tomorrow we’ll spend some more time in Arica, Chile and then we are heading to Lauca National Park on March 6th and 7th. We have a beach day planned for the 8th of March and a penguin tour on the 9th. We then head to Peru on the 10th, passing through Tacna to Arequipa.

At port

We made it to Arica, Chile! As we pulled into land, Kendra, Julie and I watched from the bow, admiring harbor seals, military boats, and … LAND. Albeit dry, arid land. But LAND, nonetheless.

It’s a weird day today. Plans for Chile/Peru are up in the air again, so I may be coming home earlier than planned. They were up in the air a few other times during the trip, but I didn’t change my flight. Now I hope if I do need to change it the cost hasn’t gone up too much. :-\ The upside is that I may have more money for other trips if I don’t travel here (i.e. Miami, Julia and Jenna)! But those decisions are to come…

I’m so anxious about the travel AND just getting off the boat. A few of us are hanging around to see if we can get any liquid nitrogen today. It looks like that won’t be happening, but we’re still here just in case. Most of the scientists have taken off into the city. Hopefully the rest of us can leave soon.

It’s also an odd day because some of the new crew has showed up, so there are random new faces around. Everything is ending; no more laundry, no more meals together. It’s a bit of a sad feeling with everyone parting ways starting tomorrow. But I’m also very excited to do something new after 33 days of the same tasks and views.

Being on the R/V Atlantis in another country is also a bit strange because it’s like a little piece of the U.S. in a foreign nation. We have US outlets, food, ultra-distilled water, and reminders of home. We can leave the ship with our port passes to visit another nation and come home to the “comforts” of the U.S. It’s a bit disorienting.

So that’s the update for now. Hope you all are well!

Heading into port...

Hi everyone! As I currently write this we are heading into port in Arica, Chile! Yay, land! It's been 33 days without land and I'm so excited to see a new sight and walk around on solid ground.

We had our last sampling run on the 28th of February and my last data analysis on the 1st of March. It's good to be done!!

Tonight we're going out and celebrating in Arica and saying goodbye to some of the crew and scientists who will depart tomorrow. Many people are having trouble with flights due to the earthquake in Santiago and may not be able to leave for several days after this. Thankfully, my travel group is heading north to Peru so we'll avoid the mess of trying to reroute and get out of Chile.

That's it for now. More when we reach land!

I'm ok

There was an 8.8 magnitude earthquake near Santiago, Chile this morning that had my family worried due to the news of tsunami concerns.

We're all OK and I'm safer at sea. Why? Well, here's a quick lesson in how tsunamis work, thanks to wikipedia:

"While everyday wind waves have a wavelength (from crest to crest) of about 100 metres (330 ft) and a height of roughly 2 metres (6.6 ft), a tsunami in the **deep ocean** (where we are) has a wavelength of about 200 kilometres (120 mi). Such a wave travels at well over 800 kilometres per hour (500 mph), but due to the enormous wavelength the wave oscillation at any given point takes 20 or 30 minutes to complete a cycle and has an amplitude of only about 1 metre (3.3 ft).[10] This makes tsunamis difficult to detect over deep water. **Ships rarely notice their passage.**

As the tsunami approaches the coast and the waters become shallow, wave shoaling compresses the wave and its velocity slows below 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph). Its wavelength diminishes to less than 20 kilometres (12 mi) and its amplitude grows enormously, producing a distinctly visible wave. Since the wave still has such a long
wavelength, the tsunami may take minutes to reach full height. Except for the very largest tsunamis, the approaching wave does not break (like a surf break), but rather appears like a fast moving tidal bore. Open bays and coastlines adjacent to very deep water may shape the tsunami further into a step-like wave with a steep-breaking front."

In sum, the energy would have passed underneath us and would have appeared to us much like a normal wave.

No pirate attack.

We’ve successfully evaded pirates.

PIRATES?! What?! Yes, pirates.

In order to bring the crew member back to safety, we had to go to an old port in Callao, Peru. Apparently, there are quite a few shanty towns near the port and locals will hop on ships and raid them for food, etc. There were some recent raids, so the crew took extra precautions and we were on lockdown from 5:30 until we cleared the port last night.

However, preparations for the port left us feeling a bit agitated, but also humored us. You see, our ship has no guns. Our protection? Fire hoses.

A conversation up on the bow went something like this:
Ronnie: (walking by Julie, Shannon, and Allen with an axe in his hand) Hello.
Shannon: Getting ready for the pirates?
Ronnie: We have to lock all of these up, actually. We're only using the fire hoses. That's a fight we're going to win - fire hoses vs. guns.
All: (laugh)
Ronnie: But we do have enough PVC to make a spud gun!
Shannon: So we'll defend the ship with water and potatoes?
Ronnie: Pirates: Ahhh!! I'm all wet and potatoey! Screw this! I don't want to mess with these Americans!
Allen: That's why they call them "freedom fries."

The ill crew member was placed in the hands of the Peruvian Navy and has since been cleared to fly back to the states where he can get medical care.

Operations Suspended

We are currently en route to Peru. A crew member is getting off the boat due to medical reasons so we have a 60 hour transit there and back out to sea. It's going to be so sad to see land only to move away from it again! :( And it turns out we might be spending an extra day at sea because of this, so no land for my birthday. Sad face.

But I do hope the crew member gets home safely and is ok. We will still get two stations in before we're done since we are ahead of schedule. And it's nice to have the time off to catch up on data analysis and sleep.

Oh, wonderful sleep.

Animal update: There were whales off the port side today, but too far away to really see. I saw a shark the other night. It was just a big gray moving blob in the water, but it was pretty large.

That's about it for now!

Home stretch?

I haven’t posted in a while since things have been so busy and tired. If I’m not collecting samples, I’m filtering, running the samples, helping others with random tasks, or analyzing data (on “off” days). And I’m definitely not as busy as others seem to be! I’m not sure how some people are still awake and haven’t gotten sick!

Tonight we played “Settlers of Catan” and I went up to the bow to check out the sky. It was a bit treacherous getting up there in the dark with the ship rocking and really cruising (+ 12 knots). The wind was also blowing fairly hard so that added to the danger. We saw some waves splash into the starboard side and decided to head back in on the port side to avoid the slick walkway. It’s the first time I’ve seen a wave splash up that far on the ship!

I haven’t been sleeping well due to a combination of the mattress, a busy mind, and waking up constantly. I’m excited for land and a large, comfy bed. Oh, how I cannot wait for the luxuries of land. And home.

Everyone on board has hit that point of “getting over” the ocean within the past few days and wanting land again. 10 more days… and 10 more days of being 24! Ahh! Land will be a pretty great birthday present.

Heading East

Just when I thought I’d never feel sea-sick again, we started moving East, into the swell and back towards Peru/Chile. The acupressure bracelets are back on and I just stuck a piece of ginger gum in my mouth. I’ll go down for some ginger cookies in a moment. So the boat is now rocking front to back and side to side instead of just side to side. Blaaaahhh…. I do wish there was more pop hanging out in the fridge. We also have a bit of a balance issue that they are trying to fix. So that is certainly not helping the situation.

We had a cast for samples at 5:30AM this morning. When we’re on a station, we often sample at all hours of the night. Usually there is a pretty good distribution of early mornings/late nights, but some people are stuck with bad sampling times and long filtering sessions following the return of the bottles. I returned to my room around 7:30 and plopped down for a nap. I forgot we had a safety drill today and was woken at 10AM to an alarm and intercom message. Oops! But there were about 5 others who arrived to the main lab with groggy expressions.

I watched the retrieval of the shallow traps from this station in the early afternoon. It was nice to explore the upper decks of the boat and catch some sun. I then filtered samples and prepped some slides for someone at USC. I wish I could look at the slides here and see the little critters!

Today was Mardi Gras, so there was some creole-inspired cuisine tonight for dinner.

We booked a tour of Lauca National Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauca_National_Park) – so excited! I hope we see lots of llamas and other camelids!! :-D And volcanoes! I’m getting pretty pumped for touring northern Chile and southern Peru!

Hope you are having a great day wherever you are in the USA!

Where we are.

The Atlantis (our ship) is along the red line.

"Sampling the ocean for particulate matter... one liter at a time." – Allen Milligan, OSU

Out here, the ocean is about 4000m deep. That’s over 13,000 ft all covered in water! So just think of how little we are actually sampling: in 1 cubic mile, there are 1.1 x 10^12 gallons of water, or 4.16 x 10^12 liters of water. Which means that in a typical CTD cast, we sample 240 liters, so we are sampling 5.76 x 10^-9 % (or 0.00000000576%!!!) of the water in 1 cubic mile. And that’s just a cubic mile of the ocean… and the ocean is much larger than that. It’s crazy to think about how little we are actually getting at to try and describe this HUGE system.
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In other news….

Does anyone want to join me down here March 5-19 for traveling in Peru? I'd be up for whatever and I'm leaving S. America from Cuzco on the 19th. Let me know!
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We're at 10S, 100W now, something like more than 1000 miles away from the Chilean coast. The water has transitioned in color to a grayish-blue as more life has appeared. We've been finding a lot of interesting macroscopic things in the plankton tows and I’m actually seeing more of a color on my filters, meaning I'm gathering more chlorophyll on the filter! Hooray! We expected this because we are in warmer waters. This morning around 6AM when I was helping grab samples, there were many creamy orange squid swimming around the boat. It’s crazy to see those things! Mmm, calamari!
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Go USA! We were already up to 4 medals this morning. It's hard to believe those are going on... We're so separated from the world out here sometimes. It's been weird not being able to watch the news and keep tabs on current events regularly.
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Sometime within the past few days I gained my sea legs. I don't know when or how, but suddenly, I ceased noticing the movement of the boat. I don't need to wear the accupressure bracelets any longer and don't feel the least bit sick at all.

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Some people have asked about the food here. OMG, let me tell you: I am seriously going to gain a few pounds during this cruise. The cooks are AMAZING and spoil us with all sorts of perfectly-spiced and prepared meals AND desserts. Here is a sample: creamy gouda polenta, fresh-baked French bread, chicken cordon bleu, blueberry cobbler, creamy asparagus soup, spinach noodles with walnuts and ricotta, and a cream puff filled with tapioca pudding. They’ve also prepared Indian and Thai food, homemade pizza, and always prepare veggies in a deliciously edible form.
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Ok, signing out! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Solid data = happy scientist

I spent the day making graphs and analyzing my data from the first three stations. The filtered samples match the trends and measurements from the instrument fairly well. It’s always a boost to have data. And sensible, accurate, representative data, at that. It justifies why you work late nights, sampling and working in the lab. It makes you feel like a scientist.

We hit station 6 tomorrow; 15S, 100W. We’re turning the corner on our rectangular survey.

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In other news, I “watched” the Cuse vs. UConn game online yesterday. And by “watched” I mean looked at the score updates and play feed on Yahoo Sports. Not the same as watching a real game at all. But, it was still a tense end there. And we won! Man, oh, man, ‘Cuse. I watched every game possible before getting to S. America. You better make it so I can watch you when I get home!

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I’ve had some really weird and vivid dreams on the boat. I don’t know if it’s the rocking or not being in my own bed, altered sleep patterns, or just being deep in thought about some things. But I’m not the only person who has expressed this.

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Two of the scientists on board came up with this great idea: the bad day box. It’s filled with little ridiculous toys and gag gifts. I got to pull from it the other day when I lost my iPod. I opened a bag to receive (how appropriate) a little toy airplane. Today, when I got to open my lab’s “Are We There Yet?” calendar, I pulled out yet another toy airplane. Are these toys trying to tell me something? :-P I think I will hang them above my bench.

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That’s it for now – hope you all are well!

Listening… and hearing!

Crisis avoided. I dropped my beloved iPod behind a pretty inaccessible staircase late last night. I was walking upstairs with the iPod hanging loosely in a pocket on the left arm of my fleece. My hands became tangled in my headphones and ripped the iPod out, sending it tumbling. It fell about 10 feet so not only was I worried about retrieving it, but also worried about it working again. You don’t know how vital music is until you are miles from land, in the middle of nowhere, doing monotonous lab tasks all day. Really. We’re not even halfway through the cruise. I.would.have.suffered.

But thankfully a crew member was able to rescue it this morning and when I came up to the lab, it was waiting for me! And it works! I will be extremely careful around those stairs now. And really cherish the music.

It was humorous that the entire crew knew about my mishap by lunchtime. I received several questions about it throughout the day. We have a great crew and I’m glad I gave them something new to talk about. ☺

Meanwhile, my good karma hasn’t spread to one of the science teams (yet). They sent down a sediment trap to 4000m below the surface early this morning and haven’t heard a response from it since about 3000m. It reminds me of the engineers and scientists at Mission Control, waiting for the ‘ping’ from a Mars lander, notifying the team of its arrival on the surface. The chief scientists are shifting around plans for the day to really try and send an abort signal down there to release the trap so we can move onward. The trap was supposed to be down at the sea floor for a year, but at this point, they just want it back.

... They just head it! The room erupted with shouts, just like I witnessed once at the University of Arizona over receiving science data from Phoenix, a Mars lander. Everyone is smiles, now discussing the next move: to leave it down there or not? I believe the consensus is that it’s good down there, that the communication box up here was just too weak. So we’re steaming back to the station.

There are so many things to still write about here: relaxing on the bow in the sun, watching the deep blue waves, wind whipping my hair; climbing up on the bow at night to see a different and illuminated night sky (we’re in the Southern Hemisphere); watching the bioluminescence sparkle as the ship cuts through the water at night… I’ll have to write more about these (and other details of life here) later. I don’t want this post to get too long. But there is so much to tell!

Also, you can read about our cruise from crew member Katie’s and grad student Jeremy’s perspectives on Scientific American’s website: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/expeditions/

Hope you all are well!

Ocean of Conciousness

Today is a bit of a slow day. I’ll get more samples around 6:30PM (Eastern time – we’re in the East Coast time zone now) and then I’ll be filtering for a good 2 hours.

I want to nap. Perhaps I should go make myself some coffee.

I just finished “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” last night. It was a very well written, detailed, and thought-provoking book about a family living with a secret. Rather, one family member knew the secret. I’d recommend it. I think my sister would like it based on her experiences this past summer at a camp for mentally challenged children.

I began to listen to “Eat, Pray, Love” last night and I’d definitely recommend this book as well. It makes me want to see Italy and eat pasta and gelato and fresh fruit. And learn Italian, which has been a goal of mine for a while.

It’s a clear, calm, day. Which hopefully means I won’t feel sick again once we hit larger swells. The water is brilliant, reflecting the bright sky and it sprinkled just a few minutes ago, the sun still out and the fresh water and wind cooling the air only slightly.

My hands are dry from holding the salty, seawater-drenched ropes and equipment. I’m glad I brought some lotion along with me from home.

We will listen to a radio broadcast of the Super Bowl since we aren’t really able to attain a TV broadcast. Meh… I never really ever watch anyway. For me, the Super Bowl is a celebration that football season is over and we can move on to better things… like March Madness. ☺ Although, I’d probably watch it if the Broncos were in it. I do like the Broncos. I just don’t follow the NFL enough to really care about either team playing today, but I’ll root for New Orleans since the Colts already won recently.

I must say, however, that I AM bummed to not be able to watch the Olympics… starting Feb. 12th on NBC.

Speaking of not being able to watch sports and being excited about March Madness, Syracuse is ranked #3 and it’s KILLING me that I can’t watch the games. I REALLY REALLY hope that I can keep tabs on March Madness as we travel March 5-20 through Chile and Peru. And I really really hope that I can catch Syracuse in a game upon my return to the states. We were planning on going to the ‘Nova game. But, darnit. I’m on a boat.

Indigo seas

I wish I could describe the color of the water. I wish I could take a picture of it that would fully describe its beauty. I wish I could bottle it up and take the color with me.

It’s a mix of indigo and a deep blue, unlike any blue I’ve ever seen before. It’s because the water is so deep here and is really only a color you can experience in the middle of the ocean. The shade changes throughout the day. In the early morning, just after sunrise and right after sunset, there is a silky silvery finish on the top. You can almost imagine that it’s a sea of silver, carefully reflecting the sunlight. When clouds are dark and present, the water takes on a black tone and a feeling of evil as you begin to see and feel larger swells. In the presence of lighter gray clouds, the water has a smooth creamy gray shade. Under the heat of the sun, the water is the brilliant deep blue, with traces of turquoise and white made by the movement of the boat.

We have ~25 days left out here. We’ve been to three stations, I’ve filtered 99 samples, and we have at least 9 more stations to go. Today we are steaming away from our 3rd station as we head to the 4th. The boat is at approx. 20S and 90W and we’re continuing to the west.

Hope you all are well.

Sleep deprived

We are currently at Station 1. My sleep schedule has been altered so I'm a bit out of it at the moment. I was up from 9PM to 10AM helping with the collection of water samples from up to 250m below the surface and then needed to filter my samples following collection. I took at nap, then got up again to do some lab work.

While collecting samples, we saw a few flying fish and a squid! Thus far, I've seen a harbor seal, jelly fish, flying fish, and squid. There was a whale sighting yesterday that prompted us to run from the mess hall, but I didn't see anything.

So what does it feel like to be on the boat? There is a constant rocking motion, and I'd compare the feeling to the sensation you get when an airplane turns. Walking around the boat is much like walking around while an airplane is turning and adjusting its direction. Sometimes you notice it, especially if there is a big wave that really moves the boat. Other times, the feeling becomes normal and you don't really feel anything at all. I'm sure as we progress in this cruise,
I will begin to notice it less and less as I further develop my "sea
legs."

I'll try my best to upload some pictures soon.

Hope you all are well! Miss you!

I'm on a boat!

The sun just set here and we are taking off for the middle of the Pacific Ocean. As we left the port of Iquique, we tossed coins into the ocean to ask Neptune for his blessing! The moon rose above the mountains and that was a nice treat as we left land. 33 more days without it... Today, I helped strap down boxes and instruments before we set sail. I never knew how much set-up was involved with a cruise! There is so much to be done to not only set up for experiments, but also for making sure things don't go flying. Today, I just felt like I needed one more trip to town before we left.

I went with Kendra and a crew member Katie. We left at 4:00, and ate empanadas for dinner (mmmm)!! And walked around the cute little central plaza. Our boat will not return to Iquique, so it was a good chance to walk around a bit and see the old buildings and central square. However, Laila's bf is flying in here so we may come back down here to meet up with him before traveling. I'm not really sure about that situation yet.... I'm almost on track with what I need to do on the cruise; basically I'm measuring chlorophyll concentrations in seawater. Fairly simple stuff; I did the same thing with carotenoids this summer (similar pigment receptors in microbes) - so it's kinda cool I get to do something similar here. I'm also helping out with deck operations and whatever other project needs some assistance. I'll be learning a lot! :)

The boat is REALLY rocking, so I'm pretty glad I took a bonine before we left. Probably should have taken something stronger. It's getting pretty late, so I might hit the hay and try sleeping as we move. From what I've heard, it gets pretty noisy where we are sleeping, so earplugs might be a necessity.

Hope you all are doing well!

P.S. Shout out to my sister who scored 19 points the other night, tying her personal best, and bringing her recent 3 game average to 16.7 ppg!!! Keep it up, Nad Nad! And good luck tonight vs. ThunderRidge!!

Lots of lifting

We finally boarded the ship around 5PM yesterday. Our rooms are actually larger than I expected and I definitely have enough room to store all of the extra supplies I brought. I had a very sour stomach which turned into nausea later, so I took some Dramamine and passed out. I feel a lot better today and sometimes don't even notice the rocking of the boat.

Some of the issues with missing chemicals and supplies have been sorted out, but there are still a few things missing that may prevent
a few of our fellow scientists from joining us. :(

I spent the day today helping lug around liquid nitrogen tanks. We toted the empty tanks to the shore around 10AM, returned on the noon boat, went back to land at 4PM, and then ran into some trouble. Apparently there was a miscommunication about whether to pay in dollars or pesos. Well, in Chile all the banks close around 2PM, so we had to rush around trying to find a money exchange. We finally found one in a mall (rather nice mall, actually), then ran back to pick up and pay for the tanks, all in time to return to the dock for the 6PM boat. And those things were HEAVY. I also found out about my email today. My email address is sci5@atlantis.whoi.edu . The internet is painfully slow here, so gmail won't really load. The limit for incoming and outgoing emails is 10K (there is a filter that won't let anything larger pass through). We leave for sea on Friday morning (as it stands now). A day late, but it's better to have most of the missing stuff on the boat when we take off. Hope you all are well.

Waiting game

Everyone is in the lobby waiting for the next move. Some people just got back from the local university where that successfully obtained chemicals that didn't make it here. We are supposedly boarding the boat today and just "cooling our heels" as we wait to unload equipment. Dealing with field work internationally poses many challenges due to cultural differences (timescales) and language barriers. Hopefully we'll get somewhere soon and move our luggage from the lobby. But who knows when we will actually make it out to sea.

En Iquique, but maybe for longer than we planned

We arrived here this morning at about 5 AM. It's hard to imagine that this is still he same day! The flight from la to Lima was nice in that I had lots of space and the A340 was nice and new. I was impressed with the service provided by LAN airlines and would def. recommend. The flight from Lima to here was fine though a teenager kept literally climbing over me to sit next to her boyfriend. And some government person came on and sprayed insecticide when we landed. Odd.

After a crazy and longish taxi ride here, we slept two hours then got up to check if the chief scientist had arrived yet. Long story short... Most of us were no help so I went and had breakfast with postdocs Masha and Jill. The juice here is so delicious and fresh and sweet. I had both pineapple and pear juice (I wasn't called that but it looked and tasted like it). I also had some huevos rancheros, salami, ham, and cheese that looked like mozzarella but Jill said it was queso fresco. I used to get that at wegmans all the time. Note: this is being written on an itouch so I apologize for grammatical errors.

After sleeping for four more hours we got up and showered and finally got a group to go out for food in the city. We found a local place that served us some amazing pisco sours, ceviche, and empanadas (def. the best I've ever had).

We wandered around he market where I bought a towel that wasn't full of scantily-clad women ("yo quiero la toalla con los arboles, por favor").

We returned to the hotel to watch the sunset and get our free pisco sours from he hotel. I got super tired and just came up to write this.

Tomorrow we move onto the ship. Should be interesting. We might be delayed leaving because DHL screwed up a shipment that is still in la. And the water is a bit crazy and there is an issue with getting the crate onto the ship and dealing with customs. All things to figure out tomorrow. Gotta love field work!!

Sent from my iPod

Go!

We leave tomorrow at 12:30PM. I've repacked my bags for a 3rd time since I found out I could ship a duffel back following the cruise. It makes things so much easier! I've checked over my lists a few times and went shopping for the last items yesterday, so hopefully everything is set.

Here's to a great two months! Adios! :)

Getting set...

<--- This is the boat (image from WHOI). That will be my home for 40 days. My dad said it's going to be like being on Survivor. Haha, I'm sure the food is going to be a lot better!

I'm busy packing stuff not only for the boat, but for the two weeks afterwards. I have *no* idea how I'm going to fit in into 2 reasonably-sized bags. There are so many little things to think of and that is why I have a super-mondo list. I just hate going on a huge vacation without some sort of organization.

I'm going to be missing out on a lot while I'm gone. I'll miss so much including:

1) My family, Jon, friends (including all of you reading this!)

2) My sister's 18th birthday (also her golden birthday)

3) 1/2 of my sister's bball season (even playoffs) :(

4) 1/2 of March Madness (I will HAVE to find an internet cafe to check up on 'Cuse and fill in my bracket - that is not an option, it is a must).

5) All of the Olympics (aww man... I LOVE the Olympics).

6) The good 1/2 of the 'Cuse bball season... and I'm missing out on going to a game when we're AWESOME!

7) My 25th birthday (I'll celebrate it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, though... pretty cool)

8) Potentially more skiing...

BUT... regardless of all of this, I will gain an incredible experience, new friends, and new skills!

Getting ready...

Hi everyone!

I thought this might be the easiest way to communicate while I'm in SOUTH AMERICA! I'm so excited for the research and the travels within Chile and Peru afterwards.

The problem is this: we are charged for every kb of information that is sent via email while on the ship. (Actually, I found out this isn't true, but we can't send/receive anything larger than 10K). I'm thinking that posting to a blog might be a solution (though I don't know the accessibility of the internet either). There is a computer room on the ship where I think I can upload photos and such, so I'll try to keep this up to date on my down time.

I leave January 24th from Los Angeles. We're flying into Lima, Peru and then will go onto Iquique, Chile. I'll be out to sea from Jan. 28th - March 3rd. I've never been on a boat for more than about 4 hours, so this should be an interesting experience. We're traveling afterwards in Chile and Peru until March 19th; we'll be stateside on the 20th.

So excited!